Way back before I discovered network marketing, I was a consultant for large organizations. I helped executives and teams to identify their vision and values in order to define (and sometimes refine) their company culture around customer service. What we found was that most team members don’t share the same values or embody the company vision with regard to helping customers. You can verify this by asking various employees in the stores and companies you visit a simple question: “What is your organization’s vision?”

Remember the adage, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”? Without a common vision, inefficiency and confusion reign as employees head down different roads. Add a mix of contradictory values, or values that don’t serve the customer, and you now have a culture that could destroy your company.

Back in my consulting days, survey results suggested that 80 percent of all employees would not tell their bosses important negative information, even if that information might save their company from failure. When this cultural virus spread to airline copilots not telling their captains about impending disasters—as was the case recently, causing a fatal airplane crash—the FAA had to step in to retrain and reward truth-telling. Culture is powerful stuff.

To some degree, we all share in creating and promulgating the cultures of our countries, our communities, our families and organizations. If you are a business owner, you have created your own culture. If you’re not aware of what you have created, just ask your friends how your culture looks to them. If you’ve created a culture of honesty, they might just tell you what they see. If you don’t like what you hear, you can change it. A wonderful attribute of being our own boss is that we can look in the mirror and make an executive decision to change.

Network marketing tends to foster a culture of continuous learning. We are constantly searching for deeper levels of understanding. We endeavor to improve our capacity to serve our customers, and in so doing, we grow ourselves and the people around us. We strive to give back to our communities and make the world a better place. We focus on seeing the best in others, suspending judgment and accepting people for who they are—knowing that we all are often capable of more than we think we are.

The culture of our profession is not to let success depend on external factors, such as education level or work experience, but on internal values like love, authenticity and a drive to continually develop ourselves personally and professionally.

Networking University offers tremendous educational resources in both professional and personal development. Your opportunity is to use these classes to help you make new choices, new friends, to define and refine your culture, and to build a life that suits you. We’re here to help!